


road to perdition (but maybe take a detour)

by curtailed



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Overdosing, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-23 21:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20896301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curtailed/pseuds/curtailed
Summary: the road to perdition is paved with mildly misguided psychopomps





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AcrylicMist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcrylicMist/gifts).

> yes that's the title, no it has nothing to do with the movie (even though that film's awesome, seriously)
> 
> for AcrylicMist, who is like awesome??? really all there's to say on the matter 
> 
> (but seriously, you rock, it's a universal agreement, and this crud i wrote will negatively affect your day but you and your writings have legit been amazing positives in some of mine's; just a huge TY to you from me and definitely a lot of other readers ofc)

When it's still cold outside -- when the temperature crawls over the 0 mark on the thermometer, when the sky turns the color of old bruises -- and you're on your apartment roof, and it's all wet sticky snow and it's not supposed to snow here, it never is, not when the day's actual murder and the concrete burns to touch --

"Why the _fuck_ are you so close to the edge?"

You stop lovegazing at the cosmos like a pretentious dipwad and blink.

You're up on a roof -- let's say, 12 stories high -- and no one else is on the roof, and Dirk is safe and snug in the apartment below, and _someone is talking to you._

"I'm not," you holler back. "I'm stargazing."

"If you scoot a few inches forward you'd fall."

True. But if there's something you've never been able to shake off -- come rain or shine -- it's living on the razor edge, swinging your legs over an endless, gaping chasm threatening to swallow you down to your particles. You _like_ being the raft in the open blue, or the lone tern in empty sky. You want to feel like a mote of dust in a whirlpool. You want to push your bubble boundaries, testing the quality of life outside, alone and steel-spined and it'll just be you against the world.

"I'm cool," you reply back to particularly nothing.

It's silent for some long minutes, and you're ready to dismiss it as a hallucinatory voice -- it happens a lot on your med nights -- when a hand rests on your shoulder.

You shriek like you're on fire and nearly topple off the roof.

"Woah, woah, _shit -- "_ And a hand's grabbing yours, fingers tight as vices, and for a terrifying moment his arm is the only thing keeping you from plummeting several hundred feet below. The stars spin above you dizzily and you _feel_ vertigo shuddering up your body, rushing into your ears and eyes, and you realize you're about one hot second from completely cracking apart -- your feet are kicking in _empty air,_ what the fuck --

"Holy crap, I'm sorry -- "

Your savior and perpetrator hauls you back onto solid ground. _Fuck,_ you're just about ready to drop to your knees and kiss it. You refrain from doing so. Once you're a decent distance from the precipice, he releases his grip.

_he_

It's a guy that stands before you, rubbing his hand like your touch personally burnt him. 

"Sorry," he's still stammering out, like he's a broken record that can't shut up -- "I mean, I didn't mean to startle you like that -- just -- I -- "

"How the fuck did you even get up here."

"I flew," he says simply, like it's the most natural thing in the world. And hell, when you're under a flash-freeze night with absolutely nothing above your heads and emptiness below, maybe you could believe that. Until you took your pills again, at least. 

"You flew. Right. That doesn't defy every aspect of physics; that's straight up pulled from supernatural bathroom magazines. How'd you really get up here?"

"Flew," he says, and then he rubs a palm across his face. You'd guess he's around your age, the way a shitty piece of turtleneck sags on a short frame, a clusterbomb of curly hair flopping all across his scalp. He glares at you with one eye, the other still squeezed shut. "Is it that hard to believe?"

"You real?"

"I don't think you floated yourself up onto the roof, asshole."

"No need to be a boiled crab about it, and _you're_ the one that damn near pushed me off." Lies and slander. Still, you're feeling especially otherwordly tonight, your fingertips are turning blue, and some crazy, not-too-hard-on-the-eyes person just waltzed right up 200 feet. You're pushing giddy. "So. So so so. What's your endgame here?"

"What?"

"What'd you come up for? Take a crack on the roof?"

"I -- " he falters a little, eyes twitching nervously in their sockets. "I was looking for someone, actually. Kind of. Ish. I thought you might be the person I was looking for, so -- "

"So..."

"You're not?" The guy shrugs a bit. "Simple enough. And again, I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine, man, don't sweat on it." You're ready to throw away sense into the wind, see how long you can ride out your reverie before reality crashes into you like a sledgehammer. "But why're you looking for them? Do they owe you money or something?"

"I fucking wish, but no."

"Your ex, then?"

"_God,_ no, can you shut it for one second?" He's awfully snappish for someone that just saved/threatened your life a minute ago. "It's just...look, I got a lot of shit to do, okay? I just need to find them. And I apologize for talking to you in the first place." He begins heading toward the roof entrance door, and you note with the interest that he does seem to _drift_ across the surface, like he's gliding on paper-thin ice.

Fuck, you really need your meds.

"I'm insane," you mutter and distantly you're aware his motions have stopped. You dramatically collapse onto the roof, your mouth tight and dry, your fingers twitching slightly. You shouldn't have come up out here at all, not when the weather's actually liable to turn your balls blue. The world's silhouettes are too sharp, all cut ink and cruel corners, and your mind feels like a thousand circuits are sparking and firing at once, a cascade of dull, white pain and something sour pooling in your gut. Starry prose was sunk in the past; right now, in the present, you feel like you're lost and drowning.

Something's _wrong,_ and you can't pinpoint what.

He doesn't bother coming over to check on you -- you're not about to be prone to fall off roofs again, after all -- but he does hover at the door, the expression of concern almost foreign. At your vantage point he seems to glow a pale aura. 

"Hey," he says slowly, "you'll be okay up here by yourself?"

_Does it look like I'll be okay?_

"Peachy," you murmur, turning your stares to the stars. Suddenly his gaze is way too raw for you to counter; you settle for distant, cold specks instead. You'll be a Davesicle within the hour. 

"Nice meeting you, I guess," he mumbles.

"_I guess._"

"Shut up." He runs a hand through his hair. "But -- I mean -- think of it as serendipity."

"Fuck no."

"Your call then, Dave. I'll see you around." It's when his shadow disappears into the passageway, and in your haze you deduce he's producing no shadow, that you realize you never told him your name.

Figures.

====

"Hey, Dirk," you call out when you finally tumble into the apartment door -- it's unlocked as always, because your brother's too much of a lazy assbag to actually turn the fucking key. "I'm home. I'm hoooome. Ring up the phones, plaster the windows, I'm going to gatecrash in my own residency. Lemme go get my goddamn meds."

Silence.

"Dirk, I literally see your sleeping ass on your shitty futon; can you at least turn on the heater before you're the consistency of frozen peas? Pretty please?"

No answer. Your hip jostles a table, where a few shitty photographs of you and Dirk at ironically terrible places are propped lazily against a tin-foil vase.

"G'night, you sleepy douche," you mutter, and you pass by his form. On a whim you decide to pat his hair -- he's always styled it in obnoxious wavy locks, like it'll balance out the fact that he's wearing anime shades. _Anime shades._ You've lost your aviators a few days ago -- you suspect they're in the same box as the stash of orange plushy smuppets -- but you'd rather decapitate yourself than have triangular trades on your face. You have more dignity than you'd believe.

He's out like a light. You'll wake him up in the morning

And sometimes, you wonder, how much of a fucked-up idiot you were. Maybe you'd be able to tell that his skin was cold to the touch -- colder than any living thing should be -- that if you listened closely, his breathing was nonexistent, or that if your fingers were to drift over his neck you'd find the ring of mottled, purple bruises as if someone had strangled the fucking daylights out of him. Or that no one sleeps in that position -- hands still curled in fists, lying limply on his sides, feet that had been kicking furiously at the cushions while you were sealed away in your bubble on the roof. Shades shattered and the smallest dribble of blood at the edge of his mouth. Or the little piece of paper tucked in his shirt, the letters an iron-grey hue --

I'M SORRY I DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS YOURS.

IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER, HE'S IN A HAPPIER PLACE.

KV.

====

Obvious jump to conclusion was obvious. When the week was over and you had more bottles of pills than you ever wanted in your life nested firmly in your hands, your bags packed and your ass parked on Greyhound, you switch mind lanes to who exactly strangled your brother in cold blood.

The stranger you had met on the roof.

The one that knew your name without you ever saying a word about it.

And the _urge_ to go downtown retribution -- just like Road to Perdition, if you'd ever make it past the intro credits -- _boils_ in you in hot, seething waves, until you swear you'll knife someone on the bus. Not literally knife someone. But you want to punch your fucking fist through the glass, tear out your teeth, take all those pills in one go --

Hell, you could do it right now. It'd be a little dry, since you didn't pack too much water, but you could swallow four at a time until all you'd see were popping colors and flashing lights, and you didn't have to sit through abnormally freezing weather. You could just do that. It's effortlessly easy.

"Don't," a voice says tiredly, a hand laying on your wrist, as you began uncorking your first bottle.

Your gaze follows the wrist up the arm to its owner's face -- and surprise, no surprise, _god_ you haven't slept properly in days -- your mysterious "serendipity" pal is sitting adjacent to you, his face as weary as your own.

"Fu -- "

"There's literally no one else on the bus except the driver, and she's probably about to pass out any second." It's still the same turtleneck, the curly mop of hair, the way he clips his words like he's getting taxed by the syllable. "And honestly, I don't give a shit how loud you talk. As long as you don't take a damn pill by your own stupid judgement."

"You killed Dirk," you say without preamble, because there's a metal hollowness inside your stomach that's been there since you woke up and saw how empty his eyes were. He died with them wide open. "You fucking _throttled _him, you monster, you shit-eating psychopath -- "

He gives a groan.

"I didn't kill him, where the hell is _that_ even coming from?!"

"Then how do you know about him?" And you know you're damn near about to scream your lungs out, punch the shit out of him, or say _fuck it_ to the world and crush the pills between your teeth.

"...because he died?"

"Who the _FUCK_ are you?" 

He sighs like he's watching the shittiest movie in the world. "You -- I mean -- Jesus, dude, I'm trying to make you feel better. Someone broke into your apartment and murdered him and probably stole some crap along the way. I just came in afterwards. It's not something under your control, it's not your fault, it's not mine, and don't fucking kill yourself over whatever you're beating up yourself about."

"You...came in -- ?"

"I'm surprised you can even seen me," he continues like you didn't say a damn word. "First time -- sure, you were tripping, you were balls to the walls, you'd believe me if I said the moon was made out of whale rubber. Can't account for the fucking conversation we're having right at this moment, though."

You blink at him, your mind stuttering to a complete stop.

"I'm a psychopomp," he bites out.

World-bending revelation?

Not exactly.

====

"People have been able to see us since day one," the guy says as you follow him out the bus. Currently it's stationed at a stumpy rest place, the driver snoozing heavily in her seat. Not great protocol, but it was literally just the two of you in an empty, snowy field, the grass all glittering glass and silvery rime. There's a different view of the stars from the fields; with no errant lights, no smoke or haze or smog, it's as clear as polished diamonds. The wind swirls sharply through the grass sheathes.

"I still don't get what the fuck a psychopomp is," you finally jab out, wincing at the feeling of icy concrete under your soles. "Is it a band name? A fast food chain? Hairspray brand?"

"I guide the souls of the dead to their proper resting place," he says, gesturing for you to stand in the middle of the road. You'd never admit it, but the scenery here is breath-stealing -- all empty flatness and rushing gales, snow spraying light and beautiful and ultimately ethereal against a canvas of darkest palettes. It's shit pulled straight up out of paintings, the kind you find in dusky lights in the gallery, the cold, soothing kind you shuffle up in the attic. Apart from him and the bus driver, you could be the only sentient thing in the world.

"I need my pills," you say instead.

Carefully, you swallow two dry -- the other person watches you like a hawk the entire time. When you've firmly put the bottle back in your pocket, the weight of each item pressing down like a sack of boulders, he takes your hand gently.

"Appreciate the feelies man, but if you'd just -- "

"Shut up," he says, but there's no real rancor in his voice. "You won't believe me, you'll probably forget the next day, and maybe I don't give a shit. I guess I just wanted someone to see this."

"See what?"

"One day you'll get it," and for a moment there's this _sadness_ in his tone, like he's seen every source of light perish. "But now -- just -- don't freak out too much, okay?"

You both stand on the empty road, and wait.

It takes some time for you to realize that the wind's changed direction -- or better, there's no wind at all, it's absolutely still and the only sound is your own breathing, pushing in and out of your nostrils. The sky above is now completely black. Dark, tarnished silver, all dripping shadows and pooling gloom -- the road stretches forever, an infinite line both ways, and you stand at the imaginary crossroads.

"There," the guy whispers, raising an arm.

There's someone walking on the road.

No --

There's --

_dozens_

_hundreds_

and all at once there's _everyone_ crowded on the roads, like all of the populations dumped onto the two-way lane in the middle of nowhere, and they're silvery and shimmery and look at you two with a look you can only describe as 

_enraptured?_

_curious_

_exhausted_

their steps completely silent, breezing over the pavement -- there's people of all kinds, tall and short, their skin colors diminished into the same, hollow glow, their eyes wide and blank and terrifying. They move like they're underwater. A brief thought flits over you to search for pale-blonde hair, ragged orange ballcap -- but it's all meaningless, monotonous grey,

"Holy hell," you whisper.

"Yeah," the guy says, and his voice is melancholic. "They're almost there. They're almost free from here." He smiles a little. "That's the least I could do for them."

A light begins shining on their faces -- it starts off as a soft lustre, glinting on their clothes and limbs, and it fills up their eyes with a searing blaze like a thousand furnaces, a thousand dying stars -- whatever they're seeing, whatever light's guiding them, it's invisible to you. At the very threshold, when the light burns from them from their insides like internal infernos --

they almost look _alive,_ they're reaching out with their hands --

When you open your eyes from a blink, the road's as dark and empty as it always had been.

"They made it." His voice is rough and low; when you glance over at him, he's rubbing at his eyes. "It's a long road to there, you know. They go through living hell and they're always going to die and then they meet me. And I can tell them where to go."

"Road to paradise," you say numbly.

"Perdition, actually." His words catch a little in his throat. "For me. Even other people like me will reach there at some point."

You wait, feeling like you're poised on the summit of the universe.

"I'm not," and his sigh is so soft, so resigned, like a baby's first whimper, and you belatedly realize he's still holding your hand. His fingers are dry and cool against yours. "I'm not reaching there. If it's hell or heaven, it's obsolete to me. I'll never know."

"Do you want to?" you say in the quietest tone of your life.

"I don't know," he finally says, giving your hand a squeeze. "Does it matter?"

His words ring in your mind when you wake up inexplicably in the bus seats, other passengers from other stops already flitting inside the vehicle. Your possessions are untouched in their duffel bag. You could've passed off whatever the fuck that was as a fever dream, or a hallucinatory side-effect, if it wasn't for 

that two pills were missing from its capsule

and a single handwritten note in your lap, still inscribed n the angry scrawl that you had found on your brother's body --

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.

~Karkat


	2. Chapter 2

You could rant _hours_ about your predicament -- mainly, why the fuck you were lying in your own puddle of blood, listening the the distant sounds of drunken brawling clashing against the walls. They ring in your ears like jackhammers, awful and painful neeedles in your eardrums, and the agony hasn't reached _yet_ \-- but it will, and you'll be choking on your own blood --

"I think he lookth okay to me, AA," a male voice lisps above you.

Two people surround your body. One's a tall, skinny man with short black hair jutting out from the sides of his head, the stupidest 3-D shades scrunched up on his nose, and it reminds you of an anatomical model of a skeleton. The other's a woman around the same age, with soft curves and a mass of brown ringlets tumbling to her shoulders, a pair of bright spiraling hairpins threatening to get lost in her hair. They both stare at you intently, the latter worrying her lip a little.

"He can see us," the woman -- AA -- says.

"Of courthe he can," the man says, waving a thin hand in front of your face. "Hey Dave, you can thee me, right? Are your eyes able to track thith movement in front of your fathe?"

"Dial down on the acid, please."

"Thorry."

You're really not able to speak at the moment, not when cold panic's seizing up your lungs.

"Wait," AA says, bending down to eye level, "look. His eyes."

"Yeth, I know he hath them."

"Hush, Sollux. But his eyes are -- what did Karkat say? 'Gleaming ruby-red, staring at me like he could dissect my internal organs and lay me raw?'"

The Sollux dude makes a laugh so nasal you swear it's a hacksaw against wood. "AA -- Aradia -- light of my fucking life -- are you thaying _thith_ ith the human KK wouldn't shut up about? Holy fuck, I thought he'd look like a model for the muetheum or thomething -- not thaying he _ithn't_, but -- " His tirade dissolves into wheezy giggles. "I'll _never_ shut up about thith to him, I thwear."

"He also mentioned that the human could see people like us. That's a rarity every century." Aradia lays cool fingers on your face, your neck, checking for your pulse. "He's barely alive. I can fix him. He'll make it to the next day."

"Tho he'th not game?"

"Not tonight, no. He's Karkat's." The two of them straightened, and for the briefest of seconds you see raw, open pain in their expressions as they stare down at you; one red-and-blue, one simmering umber. You notice their feet are hovering just above the ground, like Karkat's so many years ago. 

"You'll thee him again thomeday," Sollux promises, and gives you a toothy smile. The _humanness_ of the grin makes you relax a little. You'll bash out the memory out from your mind in the morning, if you're still alive.

"Someday," Aradia echoes, and their hands intertwine. You close your eyes and count to ten.

When you open them, it's just you alone in the bar, the ceiling cold and haunting. Your blood's clammy in your clothes.

====

When it's not bar accidents, it's car accidents.

Okay, you really didn't mean to make them rhyme -- it's just that one day you're walking across the road, actually using the goddamn crosswalks for once, and the next thing all you hear is the _honk_ of a car filling up your ears like malfunctioning sirens, and then it's just the squeal of tires and something hard and heavy slamming into your side --

"He looks dead."

"He is _not_ dead! Look at him, he's clearly breathing!"

"It's impossible for a human to stay alive after that impact. Do not argue with me on this matter."

A groan of a frustration, and then quick soft hands are touching your face, forcing an eye open. You're too caught up in a world of cloudy pain and blood to care. "See? I told you!"

"But -- I _saw_ the car hit him, there is no conceivable way in which he could have survived -- "

Both of their voices fall silent as you begin shifting; because, out of all probabilities floating lonely and meaningless in the air, the chance that you survived should've slammed-dunked right into negative zone land -- but you're alive. You're breathing. You're a little sore in the side, your mouth's leaking blood, but you have the perspicacity to focus on the two figures in front of you.

"He looks like shit!" The female one with a blue beanie pulled over black curls chirps, her words contrasting with her tone. The guy next to her is damn near diametric to her in size, nearly peaking seven feet, and some gross part of you notices that he's layered in a sheen of sweat. You nearly renew your urge to die when you realize what _kind_ of people they are.

"Can someone give me a straight, clear, ruler-lining explanation on why I'm not pancake paste on the road?" you mutter.

"You're Karkat's human," the guy says flatly.

_Karkat._ That name has appeared more times in your life than you're comfortable with, considering you're still not 100% sure that he was real in the first place. Then again, you still had his letters. 

"What do you mean, _his?_" you say casually, pushing yourself into a sitting position. Distantly alarms are swinging your way and you realize that the car that hit you has long disappeared, leaving behind only streaks of your blood. "Like I'm a slave or something? What the hell do I even owe him?"

The girl shakes her head frantically. "Nothing like that! But he has -- ah -- "

"A _preference_ for you -- " the guy interjects --

"Oh fuck no," and instinctively you grope for your shades, even if it's probably splinters from the impact. You come up empty. "I am _not_ going to get roped in some one-sided possession deal shit. That's fucked up. That's actually messed up."

"He doesn't _own _you, silly!" The girl's grin is getting waay too intense for your comfort. "It's just that -- he's trying to keep you alive by keeping us away from you. We can't take you with us. Heck -- " her smile grows -- "if his end of the stick lasts long enough, the only thing that'd kill you was if you, like, walked off a building or something!"

"Nah," you say coolly.

"Exactly!"

"Is he bending the rules of probability for me? Maybe he could focus on helping me win the lottery instead -- "

"You will see us more than anyone ever should," the guy says calmly, so very calmly, and you feel like your blood's been frozen to ice. "And you will be able to walk away from it. Consider yourself special."

You certainly _don't_ feel that way when they shimmer into thin air, the wash of red-and-blue sirens dousing your frame.

====

You wager that you'd technically be a walking god among common, ordinary populace.

It's not to say you purposely throw yourself in danger -- that's akin to the stupidity of leaving your apartment door unlocked in a place _known_ for its residential shittiness (oh, wait. Yeah, fuck yourself.) But you do realize you could toe the line of mortality with much higher frequency than anyone should ever be granted with.

You don't push it.

It's Friday Night out with Jade, who you had the guts to finally ask out on a dripping snowstorm morn, and you just planted a fat one on her cheek right on her porch and you could wrap flowers around how fuzzy your heart was feeling. It's shit like _this_ in life that makes you veer away from the threshold, settle cozily into the realm of the sane. You haven't touched your pills in a good long time. Your life's smooth. Sometimes you wake up and remember empty, glassy eyes and bruised throats and grey blocky handwriting, but on your best days they just disappear into fragments.

"Hands up, assface."

Wow, rude. Still you comply, already noting that you had just stupidly tried taking a shortcut in the back alley and are currently leveling gazes with the barrel of a gun. Being jumped by muggers around this part of town isn't uncommon, especially at this time of the day, but most of them are packed with knives. Knives you can deal with. Guns? Probably not.

"Let's keep this cool, man," you're rattling off, taking note of the other person's frame -- they're short but strong, so you'll have to rely on speed -- you'll have to confront him directly, though, since the alley extends a pretty long way on both sides and you can't outrun a fucking bullet. And something tells you he won't miss. "What do you want? Money? My credit card?"

"Wallet."

"Yeah, I can do that." You watch him out of the corner of your eye, your left hand fumbling for your wallet on purpose -- _keep him distracted, show him you're scared_ \-- the other hand inching a little closer to the gun, just a little more --

Just as your fingers clamp around it he fires.

The sound would've killed you if the bullet hadn't --

_wait_

_oh right, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck_

because the bullet had been point-blank aimed at your _fucking eyes_ and by God's given-shitten miracles it redirects _over_ your shoulder instead, even though the barrel had literally been half a foot from your mug. The gunshot sound probably took your eardrums out, but you don't hesitate -- you're already lunging at him with full weight, his face still registering shock, his fingers pulling the trigger again --

Karma, fuck yeah.

His second shot isn't so lucky -- not that his first one really cleared any hurdles -- and the sound's just as harsh, like someone kickstarted firecrackers in your ears -- but in the chaos he's got the barrel turned to his abdomen instead and now he's semi-blubbering in a puddle of his own blood, you lying kind of awkwardly on top of him, trying to regain your senses, your shades painfully crunched against your forehead --

"And what do I smell here, Coolkid?"

Hell. Fucking. No. You close your eyes dramatically, although you know you're nowhere close to the threshold as the other guy.

"Blood!" And a woman with short hair and an awful set of red pointy glasses shambles up to you, tightly holding a dragonhead cane. Her smile is near downright impossible by how much teeth it's showing. "What'chu lying in, Coolkid?"

"My own fucking piss," you fire back.

"Ruuuuuuuude!" a second voice rings in, and another woman lopes in like a cougar stalking prey. While the first one's all skinny angles and points, this one reminds you of the curved edge of a cutlass -- insane mane of hair, canines digging in her lower lip. "It was just an easy question! Why the fuck are you still down?"

"Is he about to die?" you say, slightly worried that you might be speeding up the process by lying on top of him.

"He already is!" and something twists in your stomach, because maybe he was set to kill you and he definitely shot with the urge to kill, but hell, he couldn't have been much older than you and yet -- because of your fucking _immunity_ or something -- you get to walk away bloodless and he'd drowned in his own fluids. You fight back the compulsion to vomit. 

"Don't feel too bad," the first one chimes in, quickly giving you a lick on the side of your face. You don't even have enough energy to cuss her out. "He would've killed dozens in his lifetime. And you didn't kill him anyway."

"Bullshit."

"I'll take him to his _light_," the taller woman says with a downright wicked grin, and then she's heading off with some -- _presence_ \-- that you can't exactly discern, but you sure as hell know is there. It's just you and the creepy sniffing girl in the alley.

"Lemme guess," you say slowly, readjusting your shades, "it's because I'm _Karkat's_."

She cackles manically. 

====

"Do you think evil people still go to heaven?" you ask Jade, days after the mugging incident.

She looks at you like you grew an extra head. 

"Where's this line of questioning coming from?"

"My own psychopomp stowaways," you retort, and she laughs like you just told the funniest joke.

====

Your days accelerate toward your end, but always you have some sort of following -- 

"Can't help you on the pills, motherfucker," says some paint-doped clown dude when you accidentally took one too much pill and the world's just begging for you to close your eyes, let the lights fill up your mind, and on your other side a shy guy with a mohawk casually places the bottle back in its cabinet. "My apologies," he says, his eyes all soft, "you're not allowed to go yet."

"Dammit," you curse.

====

Whether it'd be unknown ailments --

"It's a pure miracle you recovered from your pneumonia so fast," the head doctor frets, even when you glare at the jade-green and blonde-haired goth wannabes walking out of your hospital room. "You were _so close,_ Mr. Strider, I can't even tell you."

====

Or just some freak accident -- 

"That really could've hit you!" The bespectacled, baby-blue-wrapped man grins, adjusting his glasses, already levitating the piece of debris away even when it's fucking Hurricane Level Ten outside -- and honestly you're not surprised they can pull off shit like this, you really can take in some shocking shit. The bubblegum-pink tinged girl with curling blonde hair winks clumsily at you.

====

Or just some basic accident --

"You could've been killed in that fire, buster!" They look like fucking twins; the female version admonishes you like a child as she sets you outside, the forest-green male one double-pistols-winks-at-you and goes back to the building to do his actual fucking job --

====

Or just some fucking anything --

"_JADE!!!_" you scream, even though she's already disappearing under the riptide and you're so close, so _fucking _close to reaching her -- you can still see her black hair pooling in ripples of salt, your fingers inching, even as the waves pull at your face and your muscles sting --

And then the currents _change_, even as Jade continues to sink, and the waves are pushing you back to shore -- pushing you away from her -- and already you're gasping for air, pure instinct driving you up to the surface, the ink locks of her hair brushing right across your fingertips --

"He was moving around shoal much!" the woman says with a pout, ostentatious pink goggles barely covering the nightmare of hair that'd probably drape to her ankles. She's the one dragging you onto the sands, the man adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses and mildly-dyed hair before placing his hands on your bare chest. The sun is lethal above you. You're half-dead, all the world' water trapped in your lungs, and somewhere in the sea Jade's full of it and she won't ever come back or hold hands because you couldn't _fucking even_ \--

"I'd recommend go checkin' a doctor," the purple-dyed-hair one tells you, pumping out the last of the water from your mouth. You can barely even hear his words. "Sorry aboat your girlfrond, by the way," he adds, the pair of them already slinking back into the water for her.

====

Your life started slow enough, day by day in cracked windows with Dirk, watching the sun drift over Houston in terrifying rays.

And when you're looking through the other side of the telescope, it's blurred into streaks of memories --

and all you remembered how close you were each time, how you _deserved_ it, but it's you standing over Jade's coffin instead and Dirk's grave is just a chipped tombstone.


	3. Chapter 3

Your decision to stroll off the 34th floor of your apartment building, fresh winter night -- you specifically chose this night, just to be an ironic book-ends kind of deal -- was entirely voluntary, conscious, and loaded with consent. You're fucking over seventy. 

Your days are spent in silence, all rustling wallpaper and carpet trimmings and the faint, always-present tinge of dust accumulating on the sill.

You don't hit the ground.

====

Instead you find yourself packed in a massive throng, all trudging along the metropolis lanes -- but now the roads are bereft of cars, or pedestrians, or really any sign of life. The city palette is tasteless grey and monotonous. Already your feet are propelling you forward, and all you can long for is a warm, heady haze filling up your bones, like the warmest bubble bath --

"You fucker," you snap when you see him -- and how could you forget his face? when he's the first of many that opened up your can of worms -- he's waving the souls through with curt gestures that remind you of a pilot signaling. You don't hit him, because you're fucking dead, but you attempt to grab his shoulder. "You _shitlicker._ What the fuck did you do."

"You're actually asking me this while you're currently _fucking putty_ on the streets, why the hell would you -- "

"Maybe I'm tired of you and your friends playing flip a' coin with my _fucking life,_" you hiss out. "I don't need your goddamn sympathy -- you know each time they came to me, because of your shitty one-sided mess, like you're under some sick guilty obligation to keep me alive even if I _didn't want to_ be-- "

"Is there something wrong with keeping you alive?" He doesn't turn to face you; he keeps his stare on the souls ahead, already glowing faintly with light. "Is something amiss because I don't want to see unfair shit happen to you, and I really don't do enough fucking shit around here and maybe, just _maybe,_ I thought you could get a chance to live a nice long life -- "

"My girlfriend _died_ because of your -- "

"She was dead the moment the rip got her," and his voice quiets a little. 

"Wow, fuck you too."

"What the hell are you waiting for?" The grimace he gives you could almost pass off as fond. "Go to the fucking light, Dave. Some of us have a shit ton of souls to herd."

You run that statement over in your mind.

"Where's your friends?" you ask, casually strolling over to his side. The light never leaves your vision. "You know -- Lithpy, Curly-Hairpin, Blue-Beanie, Sweaty, Sniff-Happy, Psycho Chick, Clown Doze, Mohawk, Chainsaw, Goth Incarnate, Bubblegum wrapping couple, Buckteeth wonder twins, Surfer couple of the year -- do I have to list them out like Snow White Dwarves or something?"

He doesn't respond immediately.

"They're gone into the light, aren't they."

"Yeah," he says softly, and then the syllable explodes out of him -- "Yeah. Fucking -- they deserve it. They've been at it pretty fucking long, too. They sure as hell deserve it."

"You're not going to go meet them?"

"I'm the shit at the bottom of the shoe, okay? I'll find new companions. Maybe. I don't -- " he falls silent when you rest a hand on his arm, your insides suddenly twisting with a thousand writhing emotions you can't exactly name.

"Hey. Hands off," he grumbles, but he doesn't swat you away.

"I think what I'm offering's pretty clear, man." Because you _know_ how it felt to be lonely, even in the short measly decades you had compared to whatever the fuck he was put through -- the years of living by yourself, the walls bereft of shitty katanas and unironic smuppets, the days after the ocean incident where all you thought about was wheezing laughter and fresh bright green. It's a horrible, hollow feeiing, the way it leaks into every floorboard and wallpaper and paneling and you can't ever escape it, no matter you're under roof or sky, no matter what's pulsing through your head or what's filtering through your mind. It's ever-present, endless, and it's _terrible,_ and you wonder how he handles it even after the others have ceased to do so.

"You don't want this," he starts, and you move your hand down to his -- "I'm fucking serious, you don't want it. I wouldn't even wish it on a douche like you. Dude, don't -- "

"Too late," and dimly you're aware that the light has faded into a gleam. One day -- maybe tomorrow, maybe eons later -- it'll flare up again, and you'll be able to see your brother and Jade and all those people you passed in glimpses, raw and open on the other side -- but you won't be walking in there alone. 

You must've voiced the last thought out loud, because his face twists into self-hatred mode. You sigh a little. 

"It's not that simple. I can't just -- look, I wouldn't mind, really, but there's so much fucking baggage -- "

"Then tell me all about it." You tug at his grip to get him to start walking. You can't breathe air anymore, but the motion of strolling is still refreshing. It's universal. "Bro, we literally have all the fucking time in the world. Go at your own pace, man."

He mumbles something about you being an insufferable prick, but he doesn't let go of your hand.


End file.
